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I bought this nice little gun when I was picking up another gun at Oaktree Gun Club a.k.a. California Gun Girls. Those here who know me know that I'm a sucker for old guns, and this one sure is old. It looks like a second variant of Model 4, which was made during late WWI, and the serial number suggests it was made for the civilian market, although it has the military acceptance stamp on both the slide and the frame. Go figure. So, the gun is almost 100 years old.
The first thing that was surprising about this gun is how tight it is. I mean, it's almost 100 years old! Yet it feels tighter than quite a few guns I own. It also has a very comfortable grip, especially for my small hands, and a very crisp trigger with almost no creep. It's definitely not something you'd expect from a 90+ years old production gun made in the middle of a world war.
The gun was quite dirty, and I had to inspect and lube it anyway, so I disassembled it as far as I dared, and cleaned it. The basic disassembly is very easy - you rack the slide to cock it, then push and rotate the barrel shroud, remove it, remove the recoil spring, and pull the slide off. You can then remove the grips and poke around the rest of the mechanism. Oh, another interesting thing is that there's a screw on the back of the grip which allows you to adjust the tension of the hammer spring (the gun is DAO with concealed hammer).
So, today I finally took it to the range. I shot Fiocchi .32 ACP 73gr FMJs, which is my favorite .32 ACP ammo. I was at the rightmost line, and peppered the guy to the left of me with brass. Yes, the ejection port is on the left side, and this gun ejects the brass hard.
Now, for the accuracy. I'm yet to scan the target, but after initially familiarizing myself with the gun (with a certain amount of apprehension. After all, it's almost 100 years old and could blow up in my hands for all I know, especially since the Fiocchi .32 ammo is a bit on the hot side. I inspected it, and it looked just fine inside, but still, it's an old gun), at which point I had a few fliers, the gun proved to be surprisingly (for such a small and, once again, old gun) accurate. I wasn't at my best (I had a couple of Mexican cokes before going to the range, so I was full of sugar and caffeine), and I'm not that good at handguns to begin with. Yet after firing a box of ammo at the target, and discounting the 5 initial fliers, the group was a ragged hole of about 2" at 7 yds or so. It may not sound like much, but once again, it's a WWI production gun shot by a not very good shot who was also full of caffeine and sugar
The gun shoots high at that distance, I basically had to aim at the "stomach" of the target. I haven't tried shooting it at a longer distance (did I mention sugar and caffeine?). It's likely sighted at at least 15 yds.
And now a bone to the this-thread-is-worthless-without-pics crowd. All I have is a couple of cell phone pictures though.
The pictures don't do it justice. Due to the lighting it looks like the bluing is almost gone, but it's actually at 85-90%, even after I cleaned it (it looked much better when it was dirty, with dirt/grime/carbon/etc. covering the spots with work off bluing. It wore off due to holster wear, it seems).
The first thing that was surprising about this gun is how tight it is. I mean, it's almost 100 years old! Yet it feels tighter than quite a few guns I own. It also has a very comfortable grip, especially for my small hands, and a very crisp trigger with almost no creep. It's definitely not something you'd expect from a 90+ years old production gun made in the middle of a world war.
The gun was quite dirty, and I had to inspect and lube it anyway, so I disassembled it as far as I dared, and cleaned it. The basic disassembly is very easy - you rack the slide to cock it, then push and rotate the barrel shroud, remove it, remove the recoil spring, and pull the slide off. You can then remove the grips and poke around the rest of the mechanism. Oh, another interesting thing is that there's a screw on the back of the grip which allows you to adjust the tension of the hammer spring (the gun is DAO with concealed hammer).
So, today I finally took it to the range. I shot Fiocchi .32 ACP 73gr FMJs, which is my favorite .32 ACP ammo. I was at the rightmost line, and peppered the guy to the left of me with brass. Yes, the ejection port is on the left side, and this gun ejects the brass hard.
Now, for the accuracy. I'm yet to scan the target, but after initially familiarizing myself with the gun (with a certain amount of apprehension. After all, it's almost 100 years old and could blow up in my hands for all I know, especially since the Fiocchi .32 ammo is a bit on the hot side. I inspected it, and it looked just fine inside, but still, it's an old gun), at which point I had a few fliers, the gun proved to be surprisingly (for such a small and, once again, old gun) accurate. I wasn't at my best (I had a couple of Mexican cokes before going to the range, so I was full of sugar and caffeine), and I'm not that good at handguns to begin with. Yet after firing a box of ammo at the target, and discounting the 5 initial fliers, the group was a ragged hole of about 2" at 7 yds or so. It may not sound like much, but once again, it's a WWI production gun shot by a not very good shot who was also full of caffeine and sugar
The gun shoots high at that distance, I basically had to aim at the "stomach" of the target. I haven't tried shooting it at a longer distance (did I mention sugar and caffeine?). It's likely sighted at at least 15 yds.And now a bone to the this-thread-is-worthless-without-pics crowd. All I have is a couple of cell phone pictures though.
The pictures don't do it justice. Due to the lighting it looks like the bluing is almost gone, but it's actually at 85-90%, even after I cleaned it (it looked much better when it was dirty, with dirt/grime/carbon/etc. covering the spots with work off bluing. It wore off due to holster wear, it seems).
Look harder at the picture...
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